Inspections, Backed By Force, Is Best Plan

October 11, 2002|By ROBERT C. SCOTT Guest Columnist

The first question we must address is this: what is the goal? If the goal is to disarm Iraq, I believe that the best way to accomplish that goal would be to utilize the strategy articulated a few weeks ago by Secretary of State Powell: reinstate U.N. inspections, utilizing the established rules, supported by multilateral military force, if necessary.

This policy has the best chance of working. At a minimum, it is an important first step. And it has the support of the international community. If military force is needed to enforce the inspections, it will be targeted, focused and not requiring a massive invasion force; it would be unlikely to provoke widespread warfare all over the Middle East; and it is also just as likely to fulfill the goal of disarming Iraq as widespread bombing.

If, on the other hand, you merely start dropping bombs -- how do you even know where to bomb, if you haven't inspected first? If you do know where the weapons are, those locations could be placed first on the inspection list, and if there is any resistance to the inspection, multilateral military force could be targeted to those sites.

But today we are discussing a resolution authorizing the use of force, before inspectors have had an opportunity to do their jobs.

This resolution represents the last opportunity for Congress to have meaningful input in the decision to go to war. And unfortunately there are many problems and unanswered questions with granting this authority now.

The first problem is that although the resolution suggests that the president try to work with the United Nations, the provision is unenforceable. This is a problem, because the president has already stated that he didn't need the U.N., and when he finally sought U.N. support, he implied that if they failed to support the United States, he would proceed to attack without them. Furthermore, the administration is now insisting on new, unprecedented rules for inspections, a position which may provoke Iraq into resisting the inspections and creating an unnecessary impasse at the U.N. A more prudent strategy would be to require the president to come back to Congress and explain that he made the good faith effort to work with the U.N. -- rather than allowing the president to just notify Congress that based on the authority granted in this resolution, he has decided to attack Iraq.

Furthermore, the broad authority granted by this resolution is inappropriate, because of the timing of this vote -- less than a month before the election. Twelve years ago -- under the first President Bush -- the vote to use military force in the Persian Gulf was taken after the election. That would be a good model to follow, because then members voted without the interests of personal political considerations competing with the national interests.

The timing of the vote on this resolution also raises questions because there is nothing urgent about the situation in Iraq, and no case has been made that there is an imminent threat to the United States. If the president discovers that the United States is in imminent danger, he is already authorized to defend the nation, and no one would expect him to wait for a congressional resolution. So what is different now? If the argument is that the urgency was created a year ago on Sept.11, the evidence supporting the connection between 9-11 and Iraq is at best tenuous. So what is the urgency to authorize force right before the election?

In addition to these problems, granting the authority in the resolution is premature because many questions are unanswered. For example, if the president uses the authority granted in this resolution and attacks Iraq, what plans have been made for the governance of Iraq after we win the war.

And if there is a regime change, why isn't it likely that Iraq will select someone who hates us even more than Saddam Hussein.

And other questions need to be addressed, such as -- to the extent that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, is it a good idea to invade Iraq and put our troops right in harm's way.

And what will the war cost and how will we pay for it? There is no question that we are willing to pay whatever it costs to be successful in the war, but 18 months ago, we had the largest budget surplus in American history. Today, even without the costs of a war, we are approaching the largest deficit in American history, with huge deficits projected for the next 10 years. And so, is the plan to cut spending or raise taxes? Or is the plan to just run up more deficits?

What will be the domino effect? If we attack Iraq, Iraq will attack Israel, Israel will attack back, and then everyone in the Middle East will choose sides. How will that make us better off than we are now, especially in our fight against terrorism?